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Auto Seller Rant
- Thread starter MAK
- Start date
I work 60-70 hours a week and the rest i spend with my family. It's a lot easier for me to respond to an email at my convenience than for you to call me while i am at work, having dinner with my family, driving down the road or any number of other things. If someone sends me a message and says to call them, i will respond with an email when it's possible saying "What did you want to talk to me about?"
Not related to automobiles but a local guy and his wife started a poultry business and fruits and vegetables stand. Well the first few weeks of having their business opened they spammed the Craigslist adds with 200 key words so no matter what type of bird you were looking for they popped up. Then they started advertising birds for sale that weren't due to hatch for several weeks under the guarantee they'd have plenty available. They aren't even a blip on anyone's radar anymore.
learn to use the craigslist search function and how to weed stuff out.
examples- I might be looking for a garmin GPS. But I don't want to see the 90% of car GPS crap on there. so I search for "garmin -nuvi" and it shows me only garmin GPS units that don't have "nuvi" in the ad.
same for there was something I wanted that just happened to be the same as the color of a ford car (I can't even remember what it was) so I would put in "blahblah -ford" and it would just pull up the items that I wanted but nothing with "ford" in the ad.
https://www.craigslist.org/about/help/search
this shows you how to add additional stuff to your search. use quotes around a phrase you want to match exactly, and use the "-" to remove stuff you don't want to see.
another good option if you have some specifics is advanced google searching:
https://www.google.com/advanced_search
put in your info you are looking for and then for the "site" put in the google city you want (like "atlanta.craigslist.org").
what I find is that unless you really have time, the ads that have the right info and the right seller, you'll know it when you find it. 90% of the stuff on there is crap. But it's like sellers on ODT, 50% of them really don't post the right info if they were serious about selling their stuff. Photos (not with a cell phone, or at least with decent lighting), specs, condition, and possible negatives, etc.
examples- I might be looking for a garmin GPS. But I don't want to see the 90% of car GPS crap on there. so I search for "garmin -nuvi" and it shows me only garmin GPS units that don't have "nuvi" in the ad.
same for there was something I wanted that just happened to be the same as the color of a ford car (I can't even remember what it was) so I would put in "blahblah -ford" and it would just pull up the items that I wanted but nothing with "ford" in the ad.
https://www.craigslist.org/about/help/search
this shows you how to add additional stuff to your search. use quotes around a phrase you want to match exactly, and use the "-" to remove stuff you don't want to see.
another good option if you have some specifics is advanced google searching:
https://www.google.com/advanced_search
put in your info you are looking for and then for the "site" put in the google city you want (like "atlanta.craigslist.org").
what I find is that unless you really have time, the ads that have the right info and the right seller, you'll know it when you find it. 90% of the stuff on there is crap. But it's like sellers on ODT, 50% of them really don't post the right info if they were serious about selling their stuff. Photos (not with a cell phone, or at least with decent lighting), specs, condition, and possible negatives, etc.
Looking at the ads that are not free really filters out the flaky Craigslist sellers
Except auto trader. That's all dealers
I never call asking the price unless it's an oddball car that I can't find anywhere else
You want to sell it. Put the price in the ad
The ones where "I'm just throwing this out to see what's out there " are apparently people who have lots of free time
Except auto trader. That's all dealers
I never call asking the price unless it's an oddball car that I can't find anywhere else
You want to sell it. Put the price in the ad
The ones where "I'm just throwing this out to see what's out there " are apparently people who have lots of free time
Lots of good information there, thanks.
Stupidity is all around us.
Me too. I usually don't end up on the phone until its time to meet. I also like that with email you have a transcript of the conversation.
I have a good buddy making about 250k a year buying cars and trucks off CL, cleaning them up, taking good photos & relisting them with detailed info.
Sometimes he sells them before he even makes it back home, just a quick car wash, info's & photos!
Sometimes he sells them before he even makes it back home, just a quick car wash, info's & photos!
